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Still today it was not my day, the basic likeness there, but there just is something wrong with it ... too bad, I did not capture her beauty, which is really remarkable (she looks like a Greek goddess) ... someday I will make a really beautiful painting with this model ... oils, 30x40cm:

You are too hard on yourself, Sascha! The range of values you have achieved is great- and such precision with the brush-strokes.

__________________bethanymoderator in figures & portraits blogs:artbybethanylife-presencewebsitebethanyartMy inspiration is art... because without art, we would just be stuck with reality. ~Daniel R. Lynch

Love those hi-rez shots! I think she is beautiful, the only thing I notice, is the highlight on her nose. I think there would be softer, more diffuse light mainly just on the bony part of the bridge, and on the tip of the nose.
This is just what I've observed from doing the Boug copies. I've never painted a model from life, and every lighting situation is different, but I think it would still hold.

John - you are absolutely correct about the light on the nose. I was , for some reason I cannot explain, not painting what I saw on the model. What I saw on the model was exactly what you describe. Also the nose looks too straight. Even though she has a pretty long and rather straight nose I way overdid it, does not look that natural. I'm glad you like the Hi-Re images. They are even helpful for me to study my brushwork, like a magnifying class. Also photographing paintings is an art for itself, so I get practice doing them and trying different camera settings.

No new portrait today, sorry, I'm kind of taking a break today . I hope to have a model tomorrow evening.

I had quite an enlightening experience today. After a long dayjob day I thought like "let's do something easy today, just two colors, a dark brown (Asphaltum imitate, from Schmincke) and white ... on tiny surface" .... it sis not take long until I realized what I got myself in to ... that is reallly hard to do these value studies.

The first one, 50 minutes on 20x20cm:

And the second one, also 50 min, 24x18 cm:

Since they were so terribly hard to do (for me), harder than a color one actually, the way for the next practice studies: do a ton more of them.

C&C always welcome.

PS: it is the same model I have several times in this thread, I hope she might be recognizable.

Carol - thank you very much. Your support means a lot to me. I try to practice as much as my free time and money allows. Not much else I do beside it. I try to post all practice here. One reason for making this thread is to encourage others to try and also show that it seems not to be a constant upward ladder for me (or most ?). There are days, often whole periods, where it just doesn't work for me. I used to be very unhappy about this in the beginning, thinking more than once to trash all my painting stuff in the trashcan and watch TV for the rest of my life. Now I recognize that this belongs to the whole thing (for my anyway), the point is to never give up and try to learn of the mistakes.

John - thank you for commenting and thank you for recognizing her.
I find these value studies indeed somewhat harder, or maybe I just had a bad week (after a workday concentration is not on top level I guess). With color you can model form with changing the color I guess ... in a value study you only have value to model the form. But I guess this varies from painter to painter. Could also be that I just do not see the mistakes in my color work good enough yet and spot the ones in monochrome easier ? No idea really, but I need to practice more, that much is sure.

Today I have nothing good to post again, just wasn't my week or something , need way more practice harder from now on.

This is another value study from yesterday, 24x18cm:

And a 90 minute drawing from today (never mind the ear, didn't get to finish it and a lot more mistakes) ... same model as in post #46:

I try to change the light and pose now more often. Softer light seems to be harder to work with and better practice. Also when looking at the paintings and drawings I find half OK I see that they all have the same pose and light, which probably is not the best practice, I don't want to end up as one trick pony.

The good news is I have 4 days off my dayjob from tomorrow, which means 4 days of incoming practice.

If we can somehow come to grips with just enjoying the process,--- we have made a huge leap.

Because no matter what--- we are going to have all those ups and downs along our pathway. Why did we choose to become and artist-- and then why in the world did we choose to try to get peoples likenesses ???

Beats me--- But I know that we just have to accept all the trials along the way, and realize we will panit maybe 1,000 paintings before we get anywhere close to mastering our art.

There has been periods where I throw old ones out a lot-- but try to save just a couple from along the path. as storage also begins to be a problem.

For me it becomes painful- as I get shut down about the time I feel Im getting somewhere-- then have to work hard to catch up later-- but Hey--- its what it is in my life.

But I so encourege you to keep at it-- you are doing so great. I admire you and look to see what next.

__________________Carol "your thoughts are valued"Sometime's failure is the opposite to success~ but sometimes failure can be the pathway to success

Carol, Raeburn and John ... thank you all for your encouraging comments. I really appreciate it. I'm a bit short on time right now, just wanted to post the practice studies from Thursday, Friday and today.

The colors, especially in the last look a bit different in real life, camera is playing tricks on my again (the neck in the last one is not that chalky grey, is is a bit grey (which is what I saw at the models neck, a blue-ish grey ?), but not that much.

I need to take more care of the feature placement I think . All in all the likeness are quite OK for compared to other works, but it still needs a lot of more practice. I begin now to add some design elements in the background and stuff ... to learn how to make a real picture, not just a head study. Not sure if it works well, one might find the backgrounds too busy I guess. But it will take a lot more practice to create good images and I still lack a lot of drawing skills to be precise enough with the placement of all.

Thank's for looking, C&C always welcome.

__________________

Last edited by dustonpaper : 05-19-2012 at 02:41 PM.
Reason: added some info

I see amazing progress, Sascha! All looking great- proportions are right-there and the painting skill is evident. Congratulations!!

__________________bethanymoderator in figures & portraits blogs:artbybethanylife-presencewebsitebethanyartMy inspiration is art... because without art, we would just be stuck with reality. ~Daniel R. Lynch